Description

Muhammad (Arabic: محمد‎; c. 570 – 8 June 632), full name Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim (Arabic: ابو القاسم محمد ابن عبد الله ابن عبد المطلب ابن هاشم‎, lit: Father of Qasim Muhammad son of Abd Allah son of Abdul-Muttalib son of Hashim), from Mecca, unified Arabia into a single religious polity under Islam. Believed by Muslims to be a prophet and messenger of God, Muhammad is almost universally considered by Muslims as the last prophet sent by God to mankind. While non-Muslims generally regard Muhammad as the founder of Islam, Muslims consider him to have restored the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.

Born approximately in 570 CE in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad was orphaned at an early age; he was raised under the care of his paternal uncle Abu Talib. After his childhood Muhammad primarily worked as a merchant. Occasionally he would retreat to a cave in the mountains for several nights of seclusion and prayer; later, at age 40, he reported at this spot, that he was visited by Gabriel and received his first revelation from God. Three years after this event Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "surrender" (lit. islām) to Him is the only way (dīn) acceptable to God, and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.

Muhammad gained few followers early on, and met hostility from some Meccan tribes. To escape persecution, Muhammad sent some of his followers to Abyssinia before he and his followers in Mecca migrated to Medina (then known as Yathrib) in the year 622. This event, the Hijra, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, also known as the Hijri Calendar. In Medina, Muhammad united the tribes under the Constitution of Medina. After eight years of fighting with the Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The attack went largely uncontested and Muhammad took over the city with little bloodshed. He destroyed the three-hundred and sixty pagan idols at the Kaaba, in the city. In 632, a few months after returning to Medina from the Farewell Pilgrimage, Muhammad fell ill and died. Before his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, and he had united Arabia into a single Muslim religious polity.

The revelations (each known as Ayah, lit. "Sign [of God]"), which Muhammad reported receiving until his death, form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the "Word of God" and around which the religion is based. Besides the Quran, Muhammad's teachings and practices (sunnah), found in the Hadith and sira literature, are also upheld by Muslims and used as sources of Islamic law (see Sharia). While conceptions of Muhammad in medieval Christendom were largely negative, appraisals in modern history have been far more favorable. Other appraisals of Muhammad throughout history, such as those found in medieval China, have also been positive.